3 comments:

Interesting that Mr. Shaffer would choose to defend his all-day, 9AM to 5PM parade, especially since Leisure Services doesn't want anything to do with it.

While Mr. Shaffer's assertion that organizing a parade from staging, to marching, to cleanup takes "at least triple the amount of time” as conducting it, is probably a good estimate, it is obviously not true that two parades would take at least six-times the amount of time to conduct as one parade. More likely, it would take four times. And if I’m right, it would take eight hours to conduct two, two-hour parades.

I'm amazed we trust this man to manage millions of taxpayers’ dollars.

There is no reasonable argument that Amherst is incapable of staging two parades, conducting two parades and cleaning-up two parades in a single eight-hour period. Nonetheless, I’m excited by the entertainment value of watching Mr. Shaffer try.

I look forward to reading Mr. Shaffer’s written answers to an interrogatory - set of questions - that help the ACLU understand the working assumptions in Mr. Shaffer’s conclusion.

Let’s call Shaffer’s letter what it is, more of the same, abuse of power and an indefensible public policy position. I smell another reversal coming on. What happens after three strikes?

When is the Select board deliberating Shaffer’s parade policy?

If I were on the Parade Committee, I’d submit an application for a parade on 7/4/9 at the usaul time of day, and indicate that the Parade Committee will coordinate with any other parade on that day, so as to share the cost of setup, staging and cleanup and to coordinate.

Also, it’s funny that Shaffer would chose to assert a knowledge about running parades when the experts on the matter clearly are the Parade Committee members who he intends to obstruct.